The first T20 World Cup featuring 20 Teams will go down in history for a number of reasons.
The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 was a truly spectacular event – and it went down in the history books for lots of reasons.
Here we take a closer look at just some of the amazing feats and records broken in West Indies and USA.
The finalists
With two thus-far unbeaten sides meeting in the final, it was clear that the champion would set a new record for most wins in a tournament. In fact, India and South Africa both finished with eight match wins – with India missing out on a possible victory due to one of their matches (against Canada in the group stage) being a washout.
India’s 176/7 in the final, however, was the highest by any team in the final of a Men’s T20 World Cup – edging past Australia’s 173/2 against New Zealand in 2021.
And at the age of 37 years and 60 days, Rohit Sharma became the oldest man to captain a side to T20 World Cup glory.
On the attack
It was a tournament that was great for the bowlers, and both Fazalhaq Farooqi of semi-finalists Afghanistan and Arshdeep Singh of champions India took 17 wickets, the most at a single edition, one more than previous record-holder Wanindu Hasaranga of Sri Lanka.
The sensational Jasprit Bumrah of India finished with the best bowling average in an edition, with 8.3 – ahead of Anrich Nortje’s figures of 8.5 in 2022. Bumrah, who also went at an economy of 4.17, was a unanimous decision for the Player of the Tournament award.
And it was England’s Chris Jordan who smashed the record for the best bowling strike-rate in a tournament, with 8.3 – ahead of Fazalhaq Farooqi (8.9) and Tabraiz Shamsi (9.2) this year, as well as previous record-holder Jacques Kallis (9.4) from 2012.
Jordan claimed four wickets in an unseen quadruple-wicket maiden over against the USA. Curtis Campher, who claimed four wickets in four balls against The Netherlands in 2021, conceded two in his over.
New Zealand fast bowler Lockie Ferguson also created history as the first man to bowl four maiden overs in a T20 World Cup spell. He finished figures of 3/0 (4) against Papua New Guinea in the kiwis’ last group-stage match at the tournament.High scoring
In spite of the bowling prowess there was plenty of big hitting – and 2024 recorded the most boundaries in an edition of the T20 World Cup thus far, with 1,478, eclipsing 2021’s 1,349. Unsurprisingly, within that, 2024 also had the most sixes – 515, more than 100 more than 2021’s 405.
And West Indies’ Nicholas Pooran hit the most sixes in a T20 World Cup – his 17 beating the record of 16 set by his legendary compatriot Chris Gayle.
